


Where Flowers Bloom (Hope Grows)

by miltonicsimile



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Historical, Coping, Farmer! Doyoung, M/M, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Post-War, Solider! Taeyong, and this is sad :(, they have a baby!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-27
Updated: 2020-07-27
Packaged: 2021-03-05 20:00:52
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,708
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25540984
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/miltonicsimile/pseuds/miltonicsimile
Summary: When the war ends, Doyoung takes in a wounded soldier looking for a home. It doesn't take long for Doyoung to realize the worst wounds are not the kind he can see.
Comments: 1
Kudos: 70





	Where Flowers Bloom (Hope Grows)

**Author's Note:**

> hmm here is another wip and ummm for context, i wrote this at the time i was 1) rewatching merlin and 2) was taking a course on trauma .....so im sorry

The fattest and fuzziest of bumblebees lands on the yellow head of the dandelion. The flower pokes its head out from beneath the woollen blanket in which Doyoung’s daughter sleeps, limbs splaying out around her.

It is a simple, comforting scene for Doyoung as he works on dirty knees in the rich dark soil. The spring has been the unusually good combination of hot sunny days and dark rainy ones for his crops to be flourishing. It is no small thing, and Doyoung is thankful for this. He isn’t sure he could suffer a poor growing season after the demands of the war have drained not only his stores but that of the people of this land. Everyone is for want.

His dogs alert him to the company, barking and running from the fields to the path that leads to the main road to the village.

Doyoung stands, wiping as much of the soil as he can from his hands and follows the wagging tails of his dogs to the front of his property where the road ends.

The dogs surround a waif of a man. He is a stranger, young and all sharp cheekbones. He’s half-starved and still striking, even with the still-healing wounds covering his skin. He is dressed in rags, his hair hanging long. Across his body slings a small satchel.

“The morning sun has been a warm companion on your journey from the village,” Doyoung greets the strange, heartbreaking man. Pretty is perhaps a strange choice of words for a man, especially one that looks in long need of a bath, but Doyoung cannot find another way to think of him. There is a delicacy to the curve of his lips and his slender frame is reminiscent of a bird that might take flight. “I am Kim Doyoung. What business has brought you here?”

The young man, patting the heads of dogs, looks up at him. His eyes are round and profoundly sad.

It takes Doyoung aback at such blatant pain. He whistles for the dogs to come to him, and they do.

The man bows, unsure of himself. “My name is Lee Taeyong. I was wondering if you had any need of a working hand,” he says. “The people in the village said you could use help. That it’s just you here. I mean after…”

“After the war,” Doyoung supplies, plain as ever. He has never been good at softening the truth, never had the skill for it much to the chagrin of his family in the past. It matters naught now. “I lost my brother in the fighting, my wife in the childbed with the village doctor gone on the call of the queen to tend to soldiers.”

“Oh. I’m sorry,” Taeyong says softly.

“The war has taken a great deal from all, not just me,” Doyoung says. He glances over to where his daughter lies, still asleep. The war lasted six years and took so much, but not all. “Were you a soldier?”

“Yes.”

“Why don’t you return home? Have they no need of you there?”

Taeyong shifts his feet on the dirt path, his shoes old leather hardly holding together and his eyes struggling to meet Doyoung’s. His discomfort is clear. “I don’t have a home to go back to. But I need to work. My wounds from the fighting haven’t left me maimed or worse. I can do as you need.”

Doyoung considers this, considers how his question was avoided. “Where did you grow up?”

“The north,” Taeyong tells him. “I don’t have a reason to go back.”

“No family?”

“None that cared if I lived or died in the war,” Taeyong answers, again leaving Doyoung with more questions than before. But who is he to judge the secrets men cling to? Some things would poison the tongue if spoken, bring ruin and despair, and are best left in secret.

A long moment passes between them, the dog’s excited panting and bird song fill the air between them. “I wouldn’t be able to pay you much,” Doyoung eventually admits.

“I don’t need much,” Taeyong tells him. “A roof over my head and food in my belly. Somewhere safe.”

 _Safe_. This poor soldier boy has been sent home from war with nowhere to go and has somehow found his way to Doyoung. Safety, such a basic need for life. And yet this is what the boy seeks. He is a walking tragedy.

“I have a daughter.”

Taeyong nods, glancing across the yard where the child sleeps. “How old is she?”

“A bit over a year,” Doyoung says. “If you were to stay you would have to become accustomed to the needs of a child. There is no one else to mind her.”

“That would be okay,” Taeyong says, biting into his cracked primrose pink lips. “I always wanted a child of my own.”

+

Doyoung is not a poor man, for what he lacks in coin after this war he makes up for in land and home.

His grandfather had built his home with purpose, away from town but not too far, good for farming but not too far for trade. It was built on a spot with a mountain painted behind it and a river flowing before it. Doyoung’s spirit is tied to his land which has provided for those of his blood.

A single square court of good grey stone from the riverbed for walls. In one corner is the Jangdokdae, where earthenware jars hold Kimchi, soybeans, bean and red pepper paste and grains, prepared by Doyoung’s mother and wife years earlier. The rest of the courtyard holds just the house, a simple but well-built in an open U-shape. Of the earth around it, the house is made of wooden beams and stone blocks with a tiled curving roof.

The house and farm have felt much too much for Doyoung alone this past year. It has a stone and clay hearth in the kitchen along with a pine table and chairs he carved himself. Two bedrooms of modest size at either end of the house, one his own, the other was his parents and another three smaller ones for the children in the middle. It has a study by his bedroom and open living space for all by his parent’s room. It has become a house of memories and unused rooms.

He owns the land around his home, several acres in which he grows crops. On the north side, there is the chicken coop, the south a barn with a few stubborn goats, the ox for plowing. Before the war, there had been two chestnut mares that belonged to Doyoung’s wife from her girlhood, but they left with Doyoung’s older brother. More casualties of war.

The work this land and house requires is too much for one man, and Doyoung has known this long before Taeyong appeared. He had thought to call for a village girl to care for the child, or maybe one of the other young soldier boys when they came back, though he knew far fewer would return than had left.

“You can bathe in the river, and when you return, I will have clothes for you,” Doyoung tells him, once they agree.

Looking to the ground, Taeyong shakes his head. “You are generous, but I do not-”

“It is nothing,” Doyoung dismisses him. “You will need clothes to work in. Let me do this for you.”

Taeyong sleeps in the bedroom that used to be Doyoung’s parents at the other end of the house. Doyoung gives Taeyong the clothes left by his brother. He initially refuses them, and they are admittedly too big for Taeyong’s thin frame, but Doyoung insists. They can be taken in, and Taeyong will surely put on weight.

Doyoung quickly learns that Taeyong did not lie when he said he was a hard worker. He amicably sets to every task Doyoung presents to him, from trying to milk the goats (a nightmare) to cleaning the house (Taeyong clearly judging the state of it before starting) to minding his child (playing, mostly). Surprisingly, he is a good cook, knows the same recipes that Doyoung’s own mother had cooked. He is shy and quiet, and Doyoung often finds himself catching the other man looking at him.

It soon becomes apparent that though Taeyong is safe here in Doyoung’s home, the war haunts him. He jumps when his name is called or the child knocks a chair over in her clumsy attempts of walking. He has nightmares, wakes screaming in the night that sends Doyoung knocking on his door with worry.

“Just a nightmare,” Taeyong tells him, his nightshirt soaked with sweat and his eyes wide and terrified. Doyoung knows it is more than that.

Still, things do get better, for both of them. It is clear Taeyong is happier. He hums to himself when working, has eager smiles at the child and takes modest pride when Doyoung compliments his work or cooking.

At the peak of the summer, Doyoung finds Taeyong in the field watering the crops, yet again. His daughter teeters after him, like a duckling.

The other man has stripped off his shirt and rolled up his pants under the heat of the sun. Taeyong is still thin, collarbones and ribs visible, but less so. There is a healthy flush to his skin now, and his lips are no longer dry and cracked.

“You’re going to drown the plants,” Doyoung tells with a small smile. “Give the soil time to dry out some.”

Taeyong nods seriously with his thick brows knitting together, taking the advice like a soldier. His daughter clings to Taeyong’s bare leg, grinning conspiratorially. 

“I’m sure they still appreciate your attention though,” Doyoung tells him. “Plants like it when you talk to them. They pick up on the energy you put out. If you tell them sweet nothings like you would a lover they won’t just grow, they’ll flourish.”

It has the intended effect and pulls a chuckle out of Taeyong, a high pleasant sound.

But as Doyoung heads back to the house, all he can think about is how Taeyong is a broken man so desperate to love he would water plants until they wilted and died.


End file.
